Inequality Matters

Prudence L. Carter and Sean F. Reardon

Stanford University

A William T. Grant Foundation Inequality Paper

September, 2014
Direct correspondence to plcarter@stanford.edu and
sean.reardon@stanford.edu.

An earlier version of this paper was prepared for the Ford

Foundation’s Building Knowledge for Social Justice Project.

We thank Lauren Fox, Joe Luesse, Anna Comerford, and

Ericka Weathers for their very helpful research assistance
on this project; Amy Stuart Wells and Jeanne Oakes for their
support and facilitation of the initial project that launched
this paper; and the members of the Ford Foundation
Transformative Research Working Group—David Berliner,
Evelyn Brooks Higgenbotham, Patricia Gandara, Kris
Gutierrez, Linda Darling-Hammond, Mark Sawyer, Valerie
Smith, and Hiro Yoshikawa—for their critical insights and
views on the state of inequality research.
Overview
Talk of inequality, particularly economic inequality,
in the public sphere is commonplace in twenty-first
century America. Indeed, various aspects of social
inequality—race, gender, class, sexual orientation, and
immigrant status—have been the subject of protest,
debate, legislation, and judicial action for much of the
last century. Inequality in its various forms—and what
to do about it, if anything—is often the animating force
behind much of contemporary political debates and social
movements. These debates take place against a backdrop
of fitful progress and retreat in America’s long struggle
with inequality.
Although we have made some significant progress
on racial equality in the last 60 years—in education,
health, legal rights, and housing access—much of that
advancement stalled in the 1970s and 1980s, leaving us
far from racial equality in any particular domain that
influences life chances. Economic inequality in the
United States, meanwhile, has been growing steadily
for nearly 40 years, challenging the idea that America is
a land of economic opportunity. Traditional patterns of
gender inequality have been eliminated or even reversed
in some aspects of education and health, but remain
stubbornly persistent in the segmented labor market,
wage structures, and politics, for example. The lesbian,
gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities have
attained some semblances of equal protection in some
spheres, but they still face enormous bias and invisibility
in many others. In short, we still have a long way to go on
the questions and practices of social equality.
The causes and consequences of these trends in
social inequality in the United States have been the
subject of a large body of scholarship. Every academic
William T. Grant Foundation • 2014 • Inequality Matters
discipline—including sociology, economics, political
science, psychology, anthropology, history, philosophy,
epidemiology, public health, education, and public policy—
includes a rich body of work addressing the definitions,
patterns, causes, and consequences of social inequality.
Given this extensive scholarly attention, one would think
that we know a great deal about social inequality and
maybe something about how to reduce it. While we have
increased our knowledge about inequality, there are some
aspects of inequality about which we have insufficient
knowledge. We have produced considerably less research
to inform policy and practice about interventions to
reduce it.
Our aim in this paper is to describe, in very broad
brushstrokes, the state of academic scholarship regarding
social inequality, with an eye toward identifying
important gaps. We focus on four key interacting social
domains: (1) socioeconomic (financial and human capital),
(2) health (including physical and psychological), (3)
political (access to power and political representation),
and (4) sociocultural (identity, cultural freedoms, and
human rights). Our reading of the research reveals
that the evidence regarding inequality, its causes, and
consequences is mixed. In many cases, divergent findings
can be attributed to conceptual and methodological
differences among studies. In other cases, there is simply
not enough high-quality research, often due a lack of
relevant data, to form firm, evidence-based conclusions.
We identify four notable gaps in the scholarship on social
inequality. First, we know far too little about inequality
of opportunity, relative to what we know about inequality
of outcomes. More focused attention, we argue, should
be given to unpacking the ecology of economic, political,
1
social, and cultural influences that shape individuals’
and communities’ life chances and welfare. Evidence of
unequal outcomes is insufficient for a full understanding
of the processes that produce these inequalities. Second,
the scholarship of the last few decades has been much
more successful at documenting the patterns, trends, and
(to some extent) causes of social inequality than it has
been at demonstrating its consequences or identifying
effective strategies for reducing it. Research on strategies
for reducing inequality has largely focused on evaluating
policies and interventions designed to improve life
chances for those at the bottom end of the inequality
distribution. Much less research has addressed broader
strategies for reducing inequality.

Third, scholarship on the causes and persistence of

inequality has focused too little on inequality-preserving
social processes that are difficult to observe—such as
the roles of elites, private institutions, and corporations
in shaping the policies that produce and reinforce
inequality—or social and historical reproduction
processes that create and maintain “common sense”
notions of the sources of inequality. For example, some
popular narratives frame the black-white academic
achievement gap and racial and economic inequality
as “natural” facts that result from inherent group
differences, rather than viewing them as socially
constructed patterns produced by generations of
unequal opportunities. Fourth and finally, the problem
of inequality has been framed in both scholarship and in
public discourse as a problem of poverty (or some other
form of social disadvantage). In other words, scholarship
often asks “why are the poor poor?” and “what are
the consequences of poverty?” rather than “why are
socioeconomic conditions, health outcomes, and the
distribution of political power so unequal?” or “what
are the consequences of inequality for society?” This
framework narrows the scope of research, and thereby
limits our understanding of the issue.

William T. Grant Foundation • 2014 • Inequality Matters 2

What Do We Mean By “Inequality”?
In discussing social inequalities, it is important to
make two distinctions. First is the difference between
the unequal distribution of desirable life outcomes
(such as health, happiness, educational success, or
material possessions) and the unequal distribution of
opportunities (access to power and life chances that
facilitate attainment of desirable outcomes). Second
is the distinction between the unequal distribution of
opportunities and outcomes among individuals and
between groups. The idea of equality of outcomes versus
equality of opportunities appears straightforward, but
can be complicated to pin down in practice. In part this
is because opportunity is an inherently slippery notion,
making it very difficult to precisely measure equality
of opportunity. Opportunity can also be a feature of an
interaction between an individual and his or her context, a
point Jencks (1988) makes in his illuminating discussion
of the complexity of defining equality of opportunity
in education. Because individuals have different
backgrounds, resources, and dispositions, the same
environment may not provide “equal opportunity” to each
individual.
The mere unequal distribution of outcomes (such as
health status) does not necessarily imply inequality of
opportunity. For example, in a society in which everyone
had equal access to quality healthcare, some individuals
may be healthier than others as a result of luck, genetic
factors, or personal choices. Nonetheless, such unequal
outcomes may lead us to suspect that opportunities for
living a healthy life vary significantly among individuals,
in ways that do not all derive from chance. The fact that
the top 1 percent of earners earn 22 percent of all income
in the United States (Piketty & Saez 2013) is evidence
of a distributional income inequality. A host of material,
social, historical, and political conditions has increased
the likelihood of disproportional access to opportunities,
producing this distributional inequality.
The second distinction—inequality among individuals
and inequality between groups—is useful for
understanding the patterns and causes of inequality.
However, inequality among individuals need not imply
between-group inequality, which is present when race,
ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and
immigrant status correlate strongly with unequal access
William T. Grant Foundation • 2014 • Inequality Matters
to power, resources, and life chances. Between-group
inequality includes racial or gender income differences,
immigrant group differences in access to political power,
religious group differences in social or political rights, and
socioeconomic differences in access to quality education
and health care.
Given evidence of the unequal distribution of life
chances, power, and resources, scholarship should be
able to explain the extent to which inequality arises from
differing access to opportunity or other factors (such as
luck or variation in choices that individuals make even
in the presence of equal opportunity and information).
Moreover, it should be able to identify whether the key
processes at play are group- or individual-level processes.
In the case of between-group inequality of outcomes,
scholarship should examine the sources of this inequality.
Certainly, unjust laws and economic, social, and
political practices laid the foundation for the gradients
of between-group inequality in the United States. Racial
inequality is rooted in slavery, colonialism, and conquest
(Frederickson, 1981; Omi & Winant, 1994; Takaki, 1987).
Gender inequality certainly derives in part from a history
of cultural norms in the family and other domains of the
private sphere and institutionalized sex discrimination
at work, school, political arenas, and so on (Andersen &
Collins, 2012; de Beauvoir, 1989; Hochschild, 1973).
Despite tangible changes in many legal and explicit
institutional barriers to equal opportunity and access
(e.g., the Fourteenth Amendment, the Nineteenth
Amendment, the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with
Disabilities Act, and the legalization of gay marriage in
many states), inequality persists. Certainly there have
been tangible improvements in many dimensions of
outcome-based inequality—racial and gender gaps in
income, health, education, and political representation
have all narrowed in recent generations, for example—but
they have not disappeared. Further, it is very difficult to
estimate both the contemporary and cumulative effects of
prior forms of discrimination on different groups.
3
Four Domains of Social Inequality
Here, we highlight four key domains that constitute much
of the ecology of inequality: (1) socioeconomic, (2) health,
(3) political, and (4) cultural. Before delving into each
domain, however, we note that our terminology describing
each domain is necessarily broad. By “socioeconomic,” we
mean wealth, income, and work in addition to schooling
and education. The “political” domain encompasses
not only participation, power, legal and civil rights, but
also resources, in addition to social and public policy.
The “health” domain incorporates both physical and
mental well-being. Finally, “sociocultural” includes
power, the structure of stereotypes, media control and
representation, and access to cultural tools. We focus on
these four areas because of their intersections and far-
reaching implications.
Socioeconomic Inequality
Many scholars argue that socioeconomic disparities are
the primary domain of inequality—the one that drives or
reinforces inequality in other domains. Socioeconomic
inequality refers to the unequal distribution of economic
resources (e.g., money, usually measured by income
or wealth, and access to credit), opportunities to build
human capital (e.g., from schooling, technology, and
job training), and social resources (e.g., access to social
capital and information).
The United States has higher income and wealth
inequality than almost all other developed countries.
In the last 40 years, our inequality level has grown
dramatically (Gottschalk & Danziger 2005; Piketty
& Saez 2003, 2010; Western, Bloome, & Percheski
2008). Despite economic growth in the late twentieth
century, the gap between the poor and the affluent has
widened precipitously, with potentially substantial
negative consequences for those at the bottom of the
socioeconomic hierarchy. The distribution of financial
resources is so skewed that the wealthiest 20 percent of
U.S. households hold 89 percent of the country’s wealth
(and 95 percent of the nation’s non-home wealth) (Wolff
2013). Research on income inequality in the United States
clearly demonstrates a dramatic increase in the gap
between the most affluent and the rest of the population
since the late 1970s. It appears this increase is due mostly
to the rapid rise in income from wages, salaries, and
William T. Grant Foundation • 2014 • Inequality Matters
investments and accumulated wealth in the top 10 percent
of the population—particularly in the top 1 percent
(Piketty & Saez 2013). Finally, although income and
wealth inequality has grown in many countries, few have
seen inequality rise as rapidly in the last few decades as
the United States.
Between-Group Socioeconomic Inequality
There are substantial racial/ethnic, gender, and national
origin disparities in material resources (Carneiro,
Heckman, & Masterov 2003; Neal & Johnson 1996;
Sharkey 2008), labor market opportunities (Pager
2003); and educational outcomes (Jencks & Phillips
1998; Magnuson & Waldfogel 2008; Reardon & Galindo
2009; Reardon, Robinson-Cimpian, & Weathers
forthcoming). Likewise, the socioeconomic status of
one’s parents is strongly predictive of one’s own material
well-being, earnings (Chetty, Hedren, Kline, & Saez
2014), educational achievement (Bailey & Dynarski,
2011; Reardon, 2011), and health (Adler & Newman
2002; Deaton & Paxson 1998; Fiscella & Williams 2004;
Williams & Collins 1995). Because of high levels of racial
and socioeconomic segregation, most black, Latino, and
poor children grow up in low-income neighborhoods
(Logan 2011; Logan & Stults 2011; Reardon & Bischoff
2011). Moreover, racial disparities in neighborhood
conditions are persistent. More than 70 percent of black
children who grow up in the poorest quarter of American
neighborhoods remain there as adults, compared to 40
percent of whites (Sharkey 2008). These racial disparities
in neighborhood economic conditions lead to disparities
in the availability of local resources, such as schools,
parks, and health care institutions.
There are also significant differences in employment
rates by race. In 2012, the unemployment rate for blacks
was twice that of whites (Bureau of Labor Statistics,
2013). Racial differences in wealth are much larger than
the differences in wage earnings. In 2010, for example,
median white household wealth ($97,000) was 20 times
the median black household wealth ($4,900) (Wolff 2013).
Socioeconomic inequality also plays out by gender.
Disparities in economic resources (income and wealth)
typically favor men. In 2010, women earned 81 percent of
the median weekly earnings of their male counterparts.
4
In 1979, the first time comparable data became available,
women earned 69 percent of the median weekly earnings
of their male counterparts. Thus, things have improved,
but inequality persists (Bureau of Labor Statistics,
2011). The long history of discrimination that produced
these inequalities has also served to reify them, causing
them to appear to be “natural” patterns rather than
artifacts of a social system. This then tends to sustain
such inequalities, even as the structural barriers that
produced them (slavery, de jure segregated schools, and
the disenfranchisement of women) are removed. Thus,
despite improvements, the growing income divide maps
onto ongoing inequalities, circumventing past progress
toward more equality along racial and gender lines.
It is important to note that educational inequality—as
measured by the dispersion of educational attainment—
has not widened in recent decades. Moreover, racial
and gender disparities in educational outcomes have
narrowed, often substantially, in the last 40 years.
White-black and white-Hispanic academic achievement
gaps have fallen by one-third to one-half in the last four
decades (Reardon et al. forthcoming). Racial disparities
in high school graduation and college enrollment have
likewise narrowed in the last decade or two (Murnane
2013; National Center for Education Statistics 2012).
Educational disparities that have adversely affected
females historically have also decreased. Among most
racial and ethnic groups, females are graduating and
attending college at higher rates than males. However,
their representation in various disciplines or majors,
especially science, technology, engineering, and math
(STEM), is significantly lower. Paradoxically, while
women have higher levels of educational attainment, on
average, the economic returns to education are lower
for them (Bailey & Dynarski, 2011; J. A. Jacobs, 1996;
Mickelson, 1989). It is possible that even more progress
might have been made toward closing these gaps if not
for the widening overall economic inequality of the last
40 years.
Health Inequality
Distributional Health Inequality
Second, we consider the health domain. There is,
of course, considerable variation in health among
individuals. Some of this variation is due to age, biological
factors, personal choices, and the vagaries of luck. Of
concern to us, however is the extent to which health
disparities—in both access to healthcare and health
outcomes—are unequally patterned among groups.
William T. Grant Foundation • 2014 • Inequality Matters
Between-Group Health Inequality
Health and wealth have always been closely related
(Wilkinson 1994). Low-income, less educated, and many
people of color in the United States are much worse off,
on the whole, than more educated and economically
advantaged populations on various measures of physical
health (Williams 1999). This is partially due to their
financial circumstances. Lower-income children and
children of color are some of the most vulnerable to
health inequality. Data from 2011–2012 demonstrates
that more than 2 million children fell below the poverty
level because of their families’ health care costs. Children
from poor families were twice as likely not to receive
preventive medical and dental care as children in families
earning 400 percent or more than the Federal Poverty
Level (FPL). Poor children were also three times as
likely to be obese between the ages of 10 to 17 (Children’s
Defense Fund 2014). Indeed, those states with higher
child food insecurity in 2011 had more overweight and
obese children. Children who are poor and food-insecure
(lacking consistent access to adequate food) are especially
vulnerable to obesity due to risk factors associated
with poverty, including food affordability and sufficient
opportunities for physical activity (Children’s Defense
Fund 2014).
In general, low-income and less educated individuals
are at substantially higher risk for most diseases. Many
studies confirm that a concave relationship exists
between personal income and health outcomes, meaning
that each additional dollar of income leads to better
health outcomes, but by smaller amounts as the income
reaches a certain threshold (Wagstaff & Doorslaer 2000).
This income-health gradient, as it is known, has grown
stronger over the last 30 to 40 years (Dowd et al. 2011). For
instance, the life expectancy for individuals with incomes
above $50,000 in 1980 was about 25 percent longer than
those who made less than $5,000 (Deaton 2003). A 2006
study found that the life expectancy gap between the best-
off group, Asian women, and the worst-off group, urban
black males, was 20.7 years in 2001. The study concluded
that these health disparities cannot be explained by
socioeconomic status or basic health care access alone.
Rather, at least some of the inequality is due to the lack of
strong public health policies to reduce health risk factors
(Murray et al. 2006).
In addition, some health disparities based on class and
race are increasing (Williams & Collins 1995). Since the
1980s, the wealthiest Americans have seen a significant
increase in life expectancy, while the life expectancy for
5
the poorest Americans has increased by very little (Singh
& Siahpush 2006). Research from other countries helps us
understand these disparities. For instance, some studies
show that in poor countries, life expectancy increases
rapidly in the early stages of economic development. As
countries become richer and living standards increase,
however, the relationship between economic growth
and life expectancy weakens, and eventually disappears.
Thus, when rich countries get richer, on average, it appear
to do nothing to further their life expectancy (Pickett &
Wilkinson 2009). Likewise, comparative international
studies indicate that countries with greater income
inequality score worse overall on health indicators
(Pickett & Wilkinson 2009). Thus, the richest societies
do not have the best health—the countries with the least
income inequality do (Wilkinson 1996).
Some recent research suggests that when it comes to
mental health, all members of a society are disadvantaged
by high levels of income inequality (Pickett & Wilkinson
2009). Other research suggests that the happiness gap
between the rich and the poor has widened with the
income gap (Layard 2006). According to the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD),
Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands have the highest
“life satisfaction” or “happiness.” Each of the happiest
countries has very high taxes, suggesting robust social
services may be a cause of their happiness (Kostigen,
2009). Pickett and Wilkinson argue that, in more
developed countries, additional wealth does very little,
if anything, to add to the overall happiness (Pickett &
Wilkinson 2009). The Pickett and Wilkinson (2009)
research, however, is based largely on cross-sectional
correlations and so is subject to spurious correlations.
Recent research on the relationship between income
and happiness, using longitudinal data, is more mixed
on how inequality affects happiness (see, for example,
Easterlin, McVey, Switek, Sawangfa, & Zweig 2010; Sacks,
Stevenson, & Wolfers 2010; Stevenson & Wolfers 2008).
Despite the correlational and cross-national evidence
suggesting a relationship between income and health
inequalities, it is not entirely clear if the poor health of
low-income individuals is primarily due to their relative
poverty (the fact that their incomes are low relative
to others in society) or their absolute poverty (the fact
that their incomes are low, regardless of the incomes of
others).. To the extent that the latter is the cause, reducing
poverty would reduce health inequalities, even if income
inequality remained the same. If relative poverty is the
culprit, however, a reduction in income inequality may
be necessary to decrease the income-health gradient. As
William T. Grant Foundation • 2014 • Inequality Matters
with most factors associated with income, the evidence
is suggestive but not conclusive on the comparative
importance of absolute and relative income in shaping
health inequalities.
Political Inequality
Political inequality is evident in the substantial between-
group differences in civic engagement and access to
political power and rights. Particularly salient here is
the substantial evidence that the views of lower- and
middle-income citizens are not as well represented in
policy decisions as the views of the rich (Gilens 2012).
The United States Constitution (and the Fifteenth,
Nineteenth, Twenty-fourth, and Twenty-sixth
Amendments) provides all citizens above the age of 18 the
right to vote and run for public office, provided that they
meet certain requirements. Yet, people of color, women,
and individuals from low-income backgrounds are
substantially underrepresented in political positions at
the local, state, and national levels. Moreover, many who
have been convicted of criminal offenses (even nonviolent
ones) have lost their right to exercise voting power (Uggen
& Manza 2002). Limited access to political power in the
United States has served as a fundamental condition of
inequality since the nation’s genesis.
Political participation is strongly determined by
socioeconomic status (as measured by education and
income). In fact, political campaigns have come to
rely more heavily on monetary contributions than
service and time—the latter, perhaps, being a resource
more evenly distributed among residents and citizens
(Verba, Schlozman, & Brady 2004). In some ways, this
reflects a change in the nature of civic engagement and
organizational participation since the 1960s, a trend
reflected in the growing number of professionally run
political organizations for which membership requires
nothing more than the ability to write a check (Putnam,
2000; Skocpol, 2004). As political participation—and
likely influence—has begun to hinge more on monetary
participation, we have entered an era where political and
socioeconomic inequalities are increasingly intertwined.
In this view, the growing income and wealth gaps are not
simply the result of economic forces, but also of broad
policies in a political system dominated by partisan
ideologies that support the interests of particular social
classes. As evidence of this, some cite evidence that the
gap between the rich and poor has increased greatly under
Republican administrations and decreased slightly under
Democrats (Bartels, 2008). Political inequality points
6
to not only wealth and income inequality but also other
groups that have sought equality historically—including
women; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT)
persons; and racial, ethnic, and religious minorities.
This suggests that political inequality may have broader
influence than any of the other domains.
Between-Group Political Inequality
Narrow access to political power affects groups that have
even significant material resources. Political power in
terms of representation in government or even in the
workplace is inequitably distributed to immigrants, people
of color, poor and working-class people—those who are
not Protestant Christian, women, and LGBT people, for
example. One of the most conspicuous examples of political
inequality in the twenty-first century is the limited
attainment of civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgender persons. The LGBT community is working
to gain federal and state rights to marry. In 2013, the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage
Act (DOMA) unconstitutional in its definition of marriage
as only between a man and a woman. Although 38 percent
of Americans live in the 18 states that have adopted full,
state-level equality (at the time of this writing), and still
more live in cities, counties, or states with partial equality,
51 percent live in 29 states and 5 U.S. jurisdictions that still
ban all types of unions except those between one man and
one woman (Marriageequality.org 2014).
Social and cultural groups draw symbolic boundaries
about what they perceive to be “appropriate,” or
“respectable” based on their own social locations and
backgrounds (Lamont, 2000; Lamont & Fournier, 1992).
Thus, cultural and religious norms that reflect those of
politically powerful social groups continue to affront the
LGBT community’s civil rights campaigns.
The fact that many groups have limited access to political
decision-making is highly visible in the composition of most
powerful elected and appointed political institutions, from
Congress and the Supreme Court to the state legislatures.
The election and re-election of President Barack Obama
notwithstanding, racial and ethnic minorities and women
are substantially underrepresented in almost all political
institutions. For example, more than four-fifths of all
members of Congress are male, white, Christian, affluent,
and heterosexual (House.gov, 2014).
In assessing the state of research on political and
economic inequality, Jacobs and Soss (2010) rightly note
that on the one hand, expanding citizenship has increased
access to civil rights, the vote, and full participation in
William T. Grant Foundation • 2014 • Inequality Matters
society. On the other hand, Jacobs and Soss argue, the
equalization of rights has also precluded any radical
changes and redistribution of resources by recasting
(economic) inequalities as products of differences in
individual talents, efforts, or social mores as opposed
to casting inequalities as products of systemic biases
and exclusions (p. 352). Social welfare programs, for
example, face significant political opposition because
many Americans associate racialized stereotypes with
these programs. For instance, Americans overwhelmingly
oppose welfare to those perceived as “shiftless,” a
characteristic that has come to be associated with
African Americans, partly through the media’s persistent
tendency to connect welfare with blacks (Gilens 1999).
Meanwhile, Americans tend to support corporate tax
benefits and economic subsidies. Studies find that
business leaders and the affluent have capitalized on their
greater financial and organizational resources to tilt the
balance of political power in their favor. As a result, the
political process systematically favors Americans in
the top 1 percent of the income distribution (Hacker &
Pierson 2010). Meanwhile, middle- and working-class
interests are continually undermined by political assaults
on unions. Long gone are the relatively inclusive public
policies of the New Deal and Great Society eras that
helped to improve the overall welfare of many Americans.
These policies changed the American political climate,
mobilized interest groups, and altered the prospect for
initiatives to stem inequality in the last 50 years (see
Farley 1998; L. R. Jacobs & Skocpol 2007).
In addition, for a democracy to flourish, its people
must engage in strong civic relations. Recent political
scholarship examines these processes through analyses
of social capital and cohesion (Keefer & Knack, 2007;
Putnam, 2000). Some find that rising inequality is a
sign of declining social capital, arguing that diminished
civic solidarity erodes support for redistributive tax
and economic policies (Kay & Johnston 2007). A 2003
study found that trust plays an important role in civic
engagement and indicated that inequality is the strongest
determinant of trust. The study also found that trust
has a greater effect on communal participation than on
political participation (Uslaner & Brown 2005). In short,
rising inequality has eroded the extent to which many
Americans would support programs that would enhance
the life chances or opportunities of their fellow citizens.
Countries reporting the highest levels of social trust rank
highest on economic equality. These countries include
the Nordic countries, the Netherlands and Canada. While
7
the causal direction of the association between trust and
economic inequality is unknown, this research highlights
the interconnected nature of inequality domains
discussed here. These countries have emphasized equality
of opportunity in education, health care, and the labor
market as well as gender equality in their social welfare
policies (Rothstein & Uslaner 2005).
One consequence of lower social trust and cohesion
in more unequal societies is a rise in violence (Elgar
& Aitken 2011). Crime rates are positively correlated
with higher levels of income inequality (Fajnzylber,
Lederman, & Loayza 2002). Violent crime, but not
property crime, is closely related to income inequality,
social trust, and mortality rates, excluding homicide.
Low social status may be central to the psychosocial
processes linking inequality, violence, social cohesion,
and mortality. Countries that spend a greater portion of
their gross domestic product (GDP) on welfare have lower
imprisonment rates, and this relationship has become
stronger over the last 15 years. Indeed, a substantial
welfare state appears to provide significant protection
against mass imprisonment in the era of globalization
(Downes & Hansen 2006).
High rates of incarceration threaten the collective well-
being of certain communities, particularly low-income
and working class black and Latino communities. While
there is some debate about whether college enrollment
is higher or lower than incarceration rates for young
black males (see Toldson 2013), the reality is that their
incarceration rates are disproportionately higher
than other social groups (Pettit & Western 2004; The
Sentencing Project 2013). With little to no access to jobs
that pay livable wages in their neighborhoods (Wacquant
& Wilson 1993), many of these young men are imprisoned
for drug possession, selling and using illegal substances,
or for the social ills that ensue from participation in
gangs. Meanwhile, drug laws in the United States issue
harsher sentences for substances that are sold in poor
communities of color versus those sold in white or affluent
communities (Alexander 2010).
Moreover, in some states, as incarcerated individuals are
released from prisons, few are ever allowed to exercise
their rights to vote again (Uggen & Manza 2002). Like the
Jim Crow era, which kept black sharecroppers, domestic
servants, and other disenfranchised workers mired in
poverty, the prison industrial complex renders it nearly
impossible for formerly incarcerated black and Latino
voters to ever acquire a semblance of political power again
(Alexander 2010; Uggen & Manza 2002).
William T. Grant Foundation • 2014 • Inequality Matters
In sum, a great deal of research demonstrates between-
group inequality in access to political power and the
ability to exercise political rights. The specific causal
mechanisms that produce these political disparities
are less clear. In some cases it is clear that differential
access to rights (such as the right to marry) results from
structural forces and power differentials that work to
exclude certain groups. In other cases, it is not clear
whether disproportionate political participation results
from explicit exclusion, lack of socioeconomic resources,
or disillusionment. Future research on political inequality
should investigate its mechanisms more fully.
Sociocultural Inequality
Conventionally, as we think of inequality, generally we
think of financial or material access, power and resources.
In addition, there exists another level of inequality, one
that is, perhaps, more intangible. A number of scholars
have considered how social identities and group cultures
are impacted by other forms of inequality (Carter, 2012;
Gans, 1975; Lamont, 2000; Lareau, 2003; Markus &
Conner, 2013; Warikoo, 2011; Warikoo & Carter, 2009).
Despite the debates about the meaning of “culture,”
we can safely assume that there is some consensus
that different social groups share languages, tastes,
interactions, physical presentations, and comportment.
Further, social scientists have documented how these
“cultural repertoires” or “toolkits” (Swidler 1986) have
been ascribed different values, such as “highbrow,”
“lowbrow,” “mainstream,” “deviant,” or “subcultural”
(Alim & Smitherman, 2012; Bourdieu, 1986a; Gans,
1975). With power and resources has come the ability
of some social groups to shape the orientation of just
about any social institution and organization with their
cultural preferences. Contemporary debates about
multiculturalism in a pluralistic society cut at the core
of this issue. Many who lack this power and access,
consequently, have had limited to no say, particularly in
our schools, government, economy, and even within our
families.
Economic power engenders cultural capital, or what some
refer to as the “culture of power.” Cultural sociologist
Pierre Bourdieu highlighted how economic inequality
becomes institutionalized as cultural inequality
(Bourdieu 1986b; Bourdieu & Passeron 1977). In line
with the work of Bourdieu, many researchers have
shown how the habits of the middle and upper classes are
privileged in schools and elite educational institutions
to the extent that they disadvantage those outside of
8
these groups (Karabel, 2005; Khan, 2010; Lareau, 2003).
That is, schools teach dispositions in line with (upper)
middle-class norms. Children from higher-status families
may utilize those dispositions to ultimately lead to a
reproduction of their higher class statuses, as Khan (2010)
documents in his award-winning ethnography about
students attending an elite East Coast boarding school.
Meanwhile, large-scale, nationally representative
studies show that different socioeconomic and racial/
ethnic groups share similar values about education
(Ainsworth-Darnell & Downey, 1998; Harris, 2011;
Solorzano, 1992). That is, they subscribe to the dominant
achievement ideology that getting a good education is a
critical means to upwardly mobility. At the same time,
research shows that students bring diverse cultural
selves to school. Not all groups of students share the same
language, self-presentation, relationship to authority, or
other interactional styles (Carter, 2005; Lareau, 2003;
A. E. Lewis, 2003; Morris, 2006; Ogbu & Simons, 1998;
Staiger, 2006). Different social groups may use cultural
symbols instrumentally to maintain collective identity
and still seek to gain material resources (Carter 2005).
Yet, whether various social groups’ historic, invented,
or constructed cultural practices are negative and
dysfunctional or self-valorizing and functional is very
much an open question (Foley 1991). For many of these
groups, if their cultural prescriptions do not conform
to those inherent in social organizations these cultural
practices inhibit their progress (Bielby, 2000; Bourdieu,
1977; Lareau, 2003; Moss & Tilly, 1996; Neckerman &
Kirschenman, 1991; Reskin, 1993).
Between-Group Sociocultural Inequality
Cultural inequality—as indicated by differential access
to dominant cultural capital—engenders significant
probabilities that dominant, privileged, and/or elite
social groups have disproportionate access to high-status
positions or resources. We might consider explanations for
why women acquire fewer senior management, corporate
chief executive officer, or board chair positions. Some point
to differences in gender socialization with the corporate
sector privileging “male” behaviors—but primarily for men
only. Using sociological research to bolster her point, Sheryl
Sandberg, the chief operating officer at Facebook and
one of the few senior women in corporate America, says,
“Aggressive and hard-charging women violate unwritten
rules about acceptable social conduct. Men are continually
applauded for being ambitious and powerful and successful,
but women who display these same traits often pay a social
penalty” (Sandberg 2013: 17).
William T. Grant Foundation • 2014 • Inequality Matters
Other examples of cultural inequality include the
evidence that many (high-achieving) low-income
students do not apply and gain admittance to elite colleges
and universities (Hoxby & Avery 2013; Reardon, Baker, &
Klasik 2012) because of limited cultural capital—or access
to knowledge. Furthermore, cultural inequality plays
out when those who control media outlets influence the
dominant images of less advantaged members of society
and perpetuate stereotypes (Dines & Humez 2010). In
the educational realm, unequal cultural practices occur
in curriculum and pedagogy—which have fueled debates
about which groups’ histories, social and cultural icons,
languages, and realities are even taught (Banks & Banks,
2001; Gándara, 2013; McCarthy, 1990; Sleeter, 2001).
Negative images or stereotypes about the intelligence or
capabilities of either black students or girls, for example,
have been shown to have an adverse impact on test scores
(Steele & Aronson 1995).
Cultural inequality intersects with material inequality,
too. Unquestionably, recent technological advances
(including the Internet, smartphones, and tablets) either
have led or will lead to large macro-cultural changes in
communication in the twenty-first century around the
globe. These innovations have increased our capacity to
search and archive information. Through the proliferation
of massive open, online courses (MOOCs), they have
broadened educational access. The Internet and the
various cultural tools have likely expanded access not only
to education but also to good jobs, better healthcare, and
political discussions and campaigns (as exemplified by
Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign).
As these massive cultural changes occur, use of specific
modes of communication vary by group. According to
Pew Research Center surveys (2013), age, educational
attainment, and household income are the main
correlates to Internet usage. That is, Internet usage
is higher among the young, the highly-educated, and
those with high incomes (see also DiMaggio, Hargittai,
Celeste, & Shafer 2004).
In Silicon Valley, the Mecca of technological innovation,
Internet access and usage are not the only indicators of
material and cultural inequality. Women, blacks, Latinos,
and older people are grossly underrepresented and are
not visible at all as movers and shakers. Implications
for the effects of limited access to and opportunity for
income, political, and cultural inequality are yet to be
studied systematically. It does not take much imagination,
however, to perceive the likely consequences of generating
more wealth inequality, which impacts individuals,
9
various social groups, and communities excluded from the
development of this economic sector (Wadhwa 2014).
Finally, we note that between-group cultural inequality
also pertains to the legal and social acceptance of different
groups’ tastes, practices, and customs. Certain cultural
practices have faced stigma, been outlawed, or have led
to workplace, social club, and school dismissals, often
because they do not conform to the preferences of social
groups with power (Carter, 2012; Takaki, 1979; Warikoo,
2011; Yoshino, 2006). For example, media reports about a
young black girl being suspended because of her natural
hairstyle or a working-class black college athlete’s arrest
on a flight because of his sagging pants indicate cultural
inequality and bias (CBS News, 2011; Fox News, 2013). In
sum, cultural inequality often works in tandem with other
forms of material, political, and health inequality.
Finally, we note that the four domains of inequality—
socioeconomic, health, political, and sociocultural—are
greatly interconnected. For instance, because Congress
creates laws pertaining to economic policies and tax
structures, the socioeconomic domain is intertwined
with the political domain. Likewise, income and health
inequalities are linked due to the cost of healthcare, while
political processes shape decisions about health care
policies and insurance. Furthermore, when the media
transmits messages from political actors or uses the news
to project images of who does or doesn’t deserve resources
or government support (see, for example, Katz 1990), the
political domain becomes linked to the cultural domain..
The fact remains that inequality in the United States is a
vexing social problem that afflicts many. In some cases, it
is a matter of life and death.

Summarizing Research on
Inequality in the Four Domains
By and large, considerable scholarship has attempted
to account for the persistence of distributional and
between-group inequalities while many explicit legal and
institutional barriers to access have been dismantled.
Such scholarship attempts to determine the extent to
which these inequalities stem from unequal access to
opportunities, power, resources, and life chances and to
what extent they result from between-group differences
in values, choices, or endowments in a world with equal
access. The stakes of such scholarship are high.

Determining the causes of distributional or between-

group inequality is not simple. The reduction or
elimination of explicit legal and institutional barriers to
access does not guarantee the elimination of all barriers
to opportunity. Many historically disadvantaged groups
continue to face limited access to various opportunities
even in the absence of explicit legal obstacles. Over
the past 50 years, the march toward civil rights and
access to opportunity has been steady. However, the
longer disadvantaged groups have been denied access to
opportunities, the more the effects of this inequality are
compounded and are difficult to remedy in subsequent
generations. If between-group inequality arises from
unequal access to opportunity and resources, society
has a normative obligation to equalize access (at least to
the extent that society values distributional equality).
But if such inequality arises from different individual
choices when opportunity is equal, society may have no
obligation to act.

William T. Grant Foundation • 2014 • Inequality Matters 10

Gaps in the Inequality Scholarship
The scholarship on inequality in the United States is quite
extensive across disciplines. Nonetheless, our read of the
scholarship suggests that there remain dimensions in
need of further evidence.
Better Data, Measurement,
and Analysis of Inequality of
Access to Opportunity, Power,
Resources, and Life Chances
Scholarship on inequality has been particularly
effective at documenting the patterns and trends of both
distributional inequality and between-group inequality
of outcomes. As we describe above, there is an extensive
body of research on patterns of distributional inequality of
income and wealth as well as between-group differences
in income, wealth, education, health, and political power.
With the increasing availability of good data on measures
of such outcomes, the literature also provides good
information on trends in inequality. There are certainly
some areas where data limitations make descriptions
of patterns less readily available. For example, wealth
data is much less available than income data, and data
disaggregated by race and gender is more readily available
than disaggregated by income, national origin, religion,
or sexual orientation. Still, most recent patterns of
inequality in outcomes have been well described.
Evidence regarding inequality of access to opportunities,
power, resources, and life chances is not as well
documented, however. In large part, this is because access
is less readily measured than outcomes. Scholarship that
identifies how to concretely conceptualize and measure
access to opportunity, power, resources, and life chances
would be very useful in helping to describe patterns of
social inequality.
One of the biggest challenges to inequality research is
the creation of conceptual and empirical models that
holistically capture the cumulative and systemic factors
that created inequality, and continue to sustain it. If we
are to better measure inequality in access to resources
and life chances, we need clear, sharply articulated
conceptual models of what we should measure.
William T. Grant Foundation • 2014 • Inequality Matters
In addition, much inequality research is framed to
compel us to focus on access to material resources (e.g.,
livable wages, wealth, fair housing, equitable school
funding and quality teaching) as a source of inequality.
We know that inequality is also associated with social,
cultural, political, and social psychological causes and
consequences (Bourdieu, 1977; Darling-Hammond,
2010; Lareau, 2003; Massey, 2007; Steele & Aronson,
1995). If material resources were all that mattered to
eliminate inequality across domains, we could fully
engender equality of opportunity while sustaining social,
residential, and educational segregation. That is, separate
could, in principle, be equal. The idea that equal material
resources alone could eradicate inequality is seductive
because it both simplifies the problem, removing the need
to change social structures and interactions. Yet, there
is ample evidence that this is not true. The segregation of
social networks —at churches, country clubs, workplaces,
and civic organizations, for example—leads to unequal
access to information and different social ties. It can also
serve to perpetuate stereotypes and lack of intergroup
interaction, even in the presence of material equality.
Given this, a more transformative inequality research
agenda would call attention to not only inequalities of
material resources, but also sociocultural, political,
and psychological aspects of inequality, and their
interdependence. To be sure, some research has already
highlighted the fallacy that inequality can be eliminated
simply through the redistribution of some material
resources. Perhaps this is most obvious in a host of
legal and educational research studies that argue for
the value of true integration (powell, 2005) in schools.
Studies document how access to resource-rich schools
is insufficient to eradicate academic inequality. Even in
such schools, other means of inequality are pervasive via
practices such as tracking, patterned participation in
extracurricular activities, segregated peer networks, and
senses of academic efficacy (Carter, 2012; Crosnoe, 2009;
Hallinan & Williams, 1989; Mickelson, 2003; Moody,
2002; Oakes, 2005; Tyson, 2011).
Methodological division or tribalism is another challenge
to the study of inequality. While large-scale quantitative
research can provide an important, epidemiological
description of inequality, qualitative studies often
11
provide deeper insight. Such studies can generate key
conceptual and theoretical ideas and provide sites of
investigation for other measures in need of development
in broader studies. New transformative research on
inequality would engender mixed methods to study
the interlocking domains of inequality. Some of this
transformative inequality research would also take
an ecological approach—that is, one that investigates
the interplay of institutional, policy, community, and
individual-level factors that reproduce multiple forms of
inequality. Strong mixed-method studies that capture the
multidimensionality of inequality are lacking.
More Research on the
Consequences of Inequality and
Strategies for Reducing It
How much inequality is there? What causes this
inequality? What are the societal consequences of
inequality? What can be done to reduce inequality?
Of these central questions for the study of inequality,
scholarship has focused largely on the first two. By
focusing primarily on the observable patterns of
inequality and different explanations for its existence,
questions about whether certain inequalities are
problematic, and why, and for whom remain open.
There is, however, considerable research on the
consequences of inequality. In economics, for example,
there is relatively robust literature on the effects of
economic inequality on economic growth (see Ostry,
Berg, & Tsangarides 2014, for a recent, and brief,
review of this literature). Similarly, public health and
epidemiology have rich scholarship on whether income
inequality increases health disparities. Pickett &
Wilkinson’s The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality
Makes Stronger Societies (2009) marshals a wide range of
evidence to argue that higher income inequality leads to
lower average health and other social outcomes (such as
life expectancy, happiness, etc.). The evidence is largely
correlational, however. So stronger research designs
might be useful to more firmly establish the causal link
between inequality, health, and social outcomes.
Importantly, there is even less extensive research in
other domains. We envision scholarship that takes
aggregate population groups (countries, regions, or
cities, for example) as the unit of analysis, and asks how
the distribution of outcomes along some dimension
(education, health, income, political power) would differ
if the aggregate level of inequality in a region were
William T. Grant Foundation • 2014 • Inequality Matters
changed. Such research would be a useful complement
to research that asks how individuals’ outcomes would
change—particularly of those of disadvantaged groups—
if their individual access to opportunity or resources
were changed.
In addition, more research is needed to evaluate potential
remedies for inequality. Discussions of reducing
inequality more often focus on reducing poverty or
improving outcomes for those at the lower end of the
inequality distribution. For example, education policies
aimed at reducing achievement disparities typically focus
on strategies designed to improve the outcomes of low-
performing, low-income, or students of color. This is not to
say that reducing poverty or improving outcomes for those
most disadvantaged cannot reduce inequality. If such
strategies have targeted effects—that is if they improve
outcomes more at the bottom than at the top—they will, by
definition, reduce inequality.
Indeed, a number of programs and policies have been
effective in reducing inequality. For example, the Progresa
program in Mexico (now called Communidades) and
similar programs in other countries, have demonstrated
that social policies can make targeted improvements
in health and education outcomes among the poor (and
thereby reducing inequality) (Schultz 2004; Skoufias
2005; Soares Veras, Ribas Perez, & Osório Guerreiro
2010). Likewise, the Earned Income Tax Credit has had
substantial effects on the incomes and employment
of the poorest families in the United States (Dahl &
Lochner, forthcoming; Eissa & Liebman, 1996; Meyer &
Rosenbaum, 2001). A number of programs and policies
started in the 1960s—including the desegregation
of schools and hospitals in the South—appear to
have reduced black-white inequalities in health and
educational outcomes (Almond, Chay, & Greenstone
2006; Ashenfelter, Collins, & Yoon 2005; Chay, Guryan,
& Mazumder 2009; Guryan 2004; Johnson 2011). Anti-
discrimination and affirmative action policies have
played a role in reducing gender and racial disparities in
employment and wages (Reskin 1998).
In addition to large-scale social policies, a number of
smaller, local interventions show promise for reducing
between-group inequality. Some interventions developed
by social psychologists, for example, have been shown
to be effective at improving educational outcomes for
students of color (Cohen, Garcia, Apfel, & Master 2006;
Walton & Cohen 2007). While it is not clear if such
interventions can be successfully scaled up, they are
certainly promising.
12
Despite evidence of effective remedies for some
inequalities, more research is needed to identify more
strategies.
More Research that Focuses on
Less Tangible Processes that
Create/Maintain Inequality
Inequality may be facilitated or inhibited by laws and
social policy, which do not emerge at random. Rather,
they emerge from a set of interactions among individual
and institutional actors, though these processes are not
necessarily well understood. Relatively little research
focuses on the roles of elite actors in shaping the policies
and laws that facilitate inequality, for example (but see,
for example, Gilens 2009, 2012).
The way that inequality is framed and understood may
have important implications for relevant social policy. To
the extent to which inequality is seen as “natural” and even
beneficial (because it produces competition, for example),
and the extent to which poverty or wealth are seen as
deserved results of individual effort or merit, support for
social policies that reduce inequality is likely to be thin.
Conversely, to the extent to which inequality is perceived as
unjust and resulting from unequal opportunity rather than
unequal effort or merit, redistributive social policies are
likely to find much broader support. There are, of course,
many groups and institutions that actively seek to influence
the framing of inequality, but not all are equally successful.
And while there is some good scholarship on the framing
of social issues (Benford & Snow, 2000; Lakoff, 2004), we
need more research on how certain narratives come to be
understood as “common sense” explanations for inequality.
More Focus on the ‘Problem of
Inequality,’ Rather than Solely
the ‘Problem of Poverty’
The issue of economic inequality in the United States is
often framed as an issue of poverty. This is true in public
discourse and debate as well as in academic scholarship.
Moreover, despite the extensive body of research, a large
part of the scholarship on inequality is focused more on
understanding poverty than on understanding inequality.
In part, this is because the problem of inequality has
been framed in both scholarship and in public discourse
as a problem of poverty (or some other form of social
disadvantage). In other words, scholarship often asks
“Why are people poor?” and “What are the consequences
William T. Grant Foundation • 2014 • Inequality Matters
of poverty?” rather than “Why is there so much inequality
in socioeconomic conditions, health outcomes, and
the distribution of political power?” or “What are the
consequences of inequality for society?”
Consider, for example, the literature on “neighborhood
effects.” This literature asks whether and how
neighborhood contexts affect individuals’ development,
behavior, educational and health outcomes, and life
trajectories. Much of this literature focuses on the
effects of neighborhood poverty rates and “concentrated
disadvantage” (typically measured with some
combinations of poverty rates, unemployment rates,
proportions of single-parent families, proportions of
adults with low levels of educational attainment, etc.)
as a key feature of neighborhood context (Sampson,
Raudenbush, & Earls 1997; Sampson, Sharkey, &
Raudenbush 2008). This literature documents that
individuals living in disadvantaged, high-poverty
neighborhoods experience worse outcomes in any number
of dimensions. Much of this literature is concerned with
understanding the mechanisms behind this association.
Despite the importance of scholarship on neighborhood
effects, its focus on how the effects of high-poverty
neighborhoods on low-income individuals frames
the issue to obscure some of larger dynamics. First,
the neighborhood effects literature implicitly takes
the variation in neighborhood contexts, particularly
in neighborhoods’ economic contexts, as a given. In
some ways, the causal question of interest in much of
this literature is the question of whether poor families
would fare better if they lived in less disadvantaged
neighborhoods. An alternative question, one generally
not addressed by the neighborhood effects literature,
is why are there grossly disparate poor and non-poor
neighborhoods? Why are poor and non-poor families
disproportionately represented in different groups? Why
is there inequality to start? By framing the questions of
interest as the question of the impact of disadvantaged
neighborhoods, the neighborhood effects research fails
to render as problematic the mere existence of highly-
disadvantaged neighborhoods in the first place.
Second, the neighborhood effects literature has
generally been much more focused on how low-income,
disadvantaged neighborhoods affect their residents than
on how affluent, advantaged neighborhoods benefit their
residents. That is, the neighborhood literature—like much
of the literature on social mobility—has been far more
concerned with the intergenerational transmission of
poverty than with the intergenerational transmission
13
of wealth or advantage. In this regard, the neighborhood
effects literature shares a primary interest in
investigating the reproduction of poverty (or the relative
scarcity of upward social mobility of those born into
low-income circumstances) with the “culture of poverty”
debates of the 1960s and 1970s (Leacock, 1971; O. Lewis,
1996 (1966)), although current scholarship emphasizes a
different set of mechanisms (Small, Harding, & Lamont
2010). Nonetheless, much of this scholarship asks “why
are people poor?” or “why do the children of the poor
remain poor?” Yet, in order to understand inequality
and the forces that create and maintain it, it is arguably
equally or more important to study the operation and
reproduction of wealth and privilege than to study the
operation and reproduction of poverty. Scholarship should
be just as interested in asking “Why are the rich rich and
how do they and their children stay that way?”

Another less studied issue is how the actions of

the advantaged affect access to opportunity for the
disadvantaged. Neighborhood effects literature asks
how a local context affects its residents’ outcomes, but
it does not generally ask how the actions of those in
one local environment affect those in another. Reardon
and Bischoff (2011) show that the rich have become
increasingly spatially segregated over the last 40 years,
and argue that this spatial segregation of affluence may
affect the public investment and social goods accessible
by poor and middle-class families. If this segregation
leads to less investment (public or private) in collective
social goods accessible by all, then a focus on the impact
of local context may obscure a significant force in
the reproduction of inequality. Neighborhood effects
research—and research on social mobility and inequality
in general—would be strengthened by a stronger focus
on how the actions of more advantaged individuals and
groups affect access to opportunity and resources of the
less advantaged.

This is not to say that there is no scholarship on the

consequences of inequality or the reproduction of
advantage, but such scholarship is less common and
plays less of a role in shaping academic and policy
discourse around issues of poverty, wealth, and inequality.
Scholarship on health disparities, for example, includes
a number of recent papers and books on the role of
inequality in the production of health disparities.

William T. Grant Foundation • 2014 • Inequality Matters 14

Why Is the Scholarship on Inequality Not
More Complete?
As we suggest above, inequality scholarship may be
incomplete because inequality is often framed as a
problem of poverty or disadvantage. There is a certain
political economy to such a framing. In principle,
everyone can support an interest in reducing poverty,
because it does not imply a zero-sum game. If poverty is
measured relative to some absolute standard of income or
living conditions, for example, we could eliminate poverty
simply by raising everyone’s standard of living, or raising
the standard of living of the poor and leaving the affluent
class’ behaviors—as they pertain to the reproduction of
inequality—unchanged. Everyone can support a “War on
Poverty” (in principle), but a “War on Inequality” implies
reducing the relative advantage of those with power.
Reducing inequality need not be zero-sum, or course.
If everyone’s income increased when inequality was
reduced everyone would be better off in some absolute
sense. Reducing inequality does, however, imply that the
gap in access to opportunity, power, and resources would
narrow. For the advantaged, a reduction in inequality may
mean a reduction in their relative power. Thus, framing
the issue as a problem of inequality may have less political
viability than a problem of poverty.

Second, it has historically been much easier for scholars

to study disadvantaged individuals than more advantaged
ones. Researchers cannot typically access gated
communities, corporate boardrooms, prep schools, private
golf clubs, or Senators’ chambers with the same ease with
which they can access low-income communities, fast food
restaurants, public schools, public parks, and community
meetings. Barbara Ehrenreich (2002)could take a series
of minimum wage jobs to understand working conditions
of the poor; she could not have taken a series of corporate
or professional jobs to understand the working lives of the
affluent. Because it is easier for most scholars to study the
poor, we know far less about the rich and how they shape
and maintain inequality.

William T. Grant Foundation • 2014 • Inequality Matters 15

Summing Up
In this paper, we aimed to survey research on various remains essential. Given this, we must determine how to
domains of inequality. In our current society, there galvanize the attention of both the research community
is little hope that we will fully eradicate inequality; and the wider public. While future inequality research
differences in individual performances and outcomes may produce generative scholarship to fill in gaps of
will persist. Here, we highlight, as well the stark knowledge base, this research will be much more valuable
disparities between groups, patterned by race, ethnicity, if it can be effectively translated to advance public
class, gender, sexual orientation, and other identities. understanding, promote civic dialogue and engagement,
To be sure, the United States has experienced great and inform social policy. The multiple, interactive
improvements in myriad areas. The research we processes of inequality already threaten the vibrancy of
surveyed, however, indicates that absolute gains in the nation’s democracy, economy and productivity, and
a society are insufficient for the reduction of large international stature. Collective efforts and investments
and significant relative (and often disadvantageous) in the best new research, practices, and policies for the
differences between social classes or groups. reduction of inequality, nonetheless, will help to fulfill
America’s promise for a better future for its entire people.
Furthermore, researchers and policymakers have more
work to do to uncover the mechanisms that perpetuate
inequality and produce interventions that disrupt and
staunch the growth of inequality. In part, we have argued,
this is because we need better data and measurement
of key aspects of inequality, particularly inequality in
access to opportunities and freedom from hazard. It is
also because much inequality research has focused on
understanding the causes and consequences of poverty,
without equal attention to understanding the persistence
of affluence and advantage. A deeper understanding of
inequality and potential remedies may require better
understanding of how the actions of the advantaged
perpetuate inequality. It may also require more attention
to sociocultural processes that frame and shape popular
notions of inequality and its causes.

The multidimensional problems of inequality require

multidimensional solutions, perhaps developed through
innovative, interdisciplinary collaborations between
seasoned researchers and the next generation of
researchers. As we move forward, tackling inequality
through research, policy, and practice mandates
an ecological approach that attends to the multiple,
interlocking domains of inequality. Mixed-method
research projects, in particular, may be necessary to
produce both generalizable findings and deeper insight
into the subtle, often invisible social mechanisms that
shape individuals’ lived experiences.

Unbridled societal inequality may have significant costs.

Hence, investigating how to reduce its many forms

William T. Grant Foundation • 2014 • Inequality Matters 16

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